May 25, 2015 -- Warscapes, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- This
article is primarily based on interviews conducted in Syria and Sweden
between August 2013 and January 2015. For the sake of simplicity, the
term "Syriac" is here employed to denote also those individuals or
communities identifying as Assyrians, Chaldeans, Arameans, Christian
Kurds or Christian Arabs.

* * *

In northeastern Syria, “Christian
militias” (as they are often termed) are now battling the Islamic State
[also known as ISIS] alongside Kurdish forces. However, these groups did not simply emerge
spontaneously as a response to a security threat: they are the latest
incarnations of the Dawronoye movement, which first appeared on the
European and Middle Eastern political scenes 20 years ago.